Act Locally » July 30, 2015

Apple Doesn’t Want You To Be Able To Fix Your iPhone—Here’s Why

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“It’s not just Apple,” says Gordon-Byrne. “Any manufacturer that doesn’t want to provide parts and tools can instantly, without any difficulty, refuse to repair equipment and say that your only choice is to buy a new product.”

Twenty-five years ago, my family’s television, a sturdy mass of wood and tubes, went on the fritz. The curved glass screen had taken to displaying everything from the Smurfs to Peter Jennings in shades of green. Shipping the massive box to the manufacturer was out of the question. Instead, a call to a local, independent repairperson was placed. For a fraction of the cost of replacement, he restored our set to its Technicolor glory.

Just 20 years later, when an errant elbow cracked my family’s three-year-old flat-screen, no repair calls were made. What was the point? Replacing it would be cheaper, so that TV joined the 41.8 million tons of e-waste discarded around the world in 2014— much of it toxic.

A generation ago, the idea of tossing out a broken television would have seemed wasteful, or just plain stupid. Conventional wisdom suggests that rapid advances in technology—your average smartphone, after all, has more computing power than NASA used for the original Apollo missions—combined with the declining costs of offshore labor, means the culture of repair is losing the free-market battle against cheap replacement costs. Right?

Wrong, says Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of the Digital Right to Repair Coalition. The coalition of tinkerers, used-equipment sellers, e-waste reduction groups and concerned individuals came together in 2013 to serve as the public voice on issues of the digital aftermarket: what we’re allowed— and increasingly not allowed—to do with our products.

“The lack of repairability is deliberate on the part of manufacturers,” says Gordon-Byrne. It takes proper construction to create devices that can be repaired, as well as basic support to allow those repairs to happen. Many items are unfixable by design, like Apple’s 2015 Retina Macbook, which uses proprietary screws, and solders and glues components in place. But many items could be repaired, with the right parts and knowledge. The local repairperson of my childhood was aided by manufacturers’ providing manuals and selling parts. Those are two things that, for the most part, no longer happen.

“Their business model now,” says Gordon-Byrne, “is: You ship the TV back to them. They fix it, but they charge you whatever they want. They don’t allow Mr. Bob’s TV repair to buy the parts, the tools, or to get the manuals.”

Companies often simply urge customers to purchase a new device. “I heard this story recently,” says Gordon-Byrne. “A teenager’s headphone jack on his iPhone didn’t work, so he took it to the Apple Store for repair. The store told him that his phone was off warranty and, regardless, they don’t repair headphone jacks.” Instead, he was given the option to trade in for a new phone at a hefty cost of $275. In this case he was lucky: The headphone jack is a common component across smartphones and can be purchased in bulk for as little as 10 cents. A tinkerer was able to fix the supposedly irreparable phone for $25. In 2014, however, new manufacturer guidelines released by Apple prompted rumors that the company may phase out this standard connector for its own proprietary “lightning” port. (Apple did not respond to a request for comment.)

“It’s not just Apple,” says Gordon-Byrne. “Any manufacturer that doesn’t want to provide parts and tools can instantly, without any difficulty, refuse to repair equipment and say that your only choice is to buy a new product.”

That doesn’t mean repair is impossible—just difficult. For parts, one must typically turn to Asian suppliers that skirt intellectual property laws and often lack quality control. For information, one must depend on individuals who dissect devices on YouTube and websites like iFixit, a crowdsourced part of the Right to Repair Coalition that provides instruction manuals and ranks products by ease of repair.

Increasingly, companies create barriers in the form of proprietary black box software. Gordon-Byrne tells the story of a woman with a broken refrigerator who was able to identify which part had broken, procure the digital part, and successfully replace it—despite a lack of official documentation—only to be stymied by the need for a reset code. The only way to get the code? Paying for a technician to come out and enter it. Gordon-Byrne calls such practices “abusive.”

The tractor company John Deere has said that owning its products is little more than a license to use them. It argues that any modification of their software—say, to fix a broken harvester in a rural place where a technician may not arrive for days, but crops can spoil in hours—would violate copyright law.

Such policies mean that the next generation of engineers won’t be able to tinker as children without risking a lawsuit. Imagine if the Wright Brothers had been prevented from reengineering the bike.

Recycling is not the answer, either. We ship about 40 percent of electronics earmarked for recycling to countries like China, India, Ghana and Nigeria. Because so many electronics are not designed to be repaired, taking apart these products is hazardous. It frequently involves burning them or using corrosive acids to melt away the plastic and extract the gold, silver, copper and other precious metals that, combined with low wages, make electronics recycling profitable. In Xiejia, China, with more than 3,000 registered recycling businesses, the money comes at a cost: Lead levels in children’s bloodstreams have been high enough to cause irreversible brain damage.

In New York and Minnesota, the coalition has gotten legislation introduced—though not yet passed—that would require manufacturers to provide service information, security updates and replacement parts. It’s based on a Massachusetts auto repair bill, passed in 2012, that requires auto companies to standardize their diagnostic codes and repair data by 2018. The bills in New York and Minnesota, however, are more expansive, encompassing anything that contains a microchip, from medical equipment to tractors to cellphones.

“We’re losing jobs in the state of New York because these large corporations are mandating repair work be done by their own companies,” says Republican state Sen. Phil Boyle, who introduced the bill in New York. “The more vertical integration there is, the less free market there is. The small repair shop down the street needs to stay in business.”

Kendra Pierre-Louis is a member of the Rural America In These Times' Board of Editors. Kendra is a Queens, New York-based journalist. Her work has appeared in, Newsweek, Earth Island Journal and Modern Farmer. She is the author of Green Washed: Why We Can’t Buy Our Way to a Green Planet (Ig Publishing 2012).

I'd actually argue that the "innovation" going on here is designed to lock out users from their own equipment. Unfortunate byproducts are the enormous waste, harm and inefficiency.

Doing new things in a new way (i.e. "innovation", a word I'm hesitant to use because of its overuse and misuse) isn't inherently harmful. In fact it's what could help turn the damage we're doing to our planet around. But what's going on now is... the opposite of that.

Same idea as genetic engineering- not a bad thing in itself. The unsafe, slapdash unconcerned way we're going about it is what's bad.

Posted by Doubting_Thomas12 on 2017-07-25 20:29:06

Oh, and that "genius" was for sure lying, but to be fair, being an apple genius doesn't mean much. It's not the hardest test to complete. He probably doesn't even know what it looks like behind the screen, they have to send all screens out for repair.

Posted by Thatguythatknowsstuff on 2016-10-31 19:02:55

Wow...great information, thanks so much for the response."They rip you off" -- TELL me about it...I have a 5S with a broken TouchID home button (everything else is fine) and I went to Apple, since they are the only ones that have the technical ability to get a new functioning TouchID home button, and they wanted to charge me 150 or so -- because according to them, they can't just replace the home button -- they have to replace the entire screen as well, and all the components that come attached to the screen (proximity sensor, etc). The guy at the "Genius Bar" even tried lying to me, said the home button was fused to the screen -- total BS...I loaded up a YouTube video that shows you can remove it in less than two minutes...three screws with a phillips head, bam, home button comes out. I was so angry I swore at the guy and stormed out of the store lol.In terms of the glass being attached to the touchscreen -- I understand that...problem is that gluing the glass to the screen isn't exactly easy. There's a guy on YouTube who tried it, it didn't come out so well...Although there must be some kind of method to do it properly, unless it's all done robotically...Maybe some kind of device is required that makes sure the glue is evenly distributed, I have no idea.

Posted by xrzx on 2016-10-31 15:11:35

If you are an apple authorized service provider you can get parts from them. However they rip you off for parts and often want you to send any broken devices to them for repair, which kind of defeats the purpose of being a repair shop. The third party parts are often the same quality if not the exact same parts as the ones apple sends. Most LCD's are samsung or LG displays, so you can pay Apple $120 for their part or $80 for the same part re-boxed with a red backing as apposed to black as if that makes a difference, by another distributor. For samsung and HTC, their parts are readily available for distribution, they don't require a license to distribute, because they are not in it to bilk their customers unlike Apple. They will not sell you just the glass though, you have to get the LCD and Glass replacement, it comes in 1 piece.

Posted by Thatguythatknowsstuff on 2016-10-31 13:49:07

How do you get your parts, if I may ask?Is there ANY legitimate way to get official iPhone parts from Apple?I'm betting the answer is obviously no.This is another consequence of Apple doing this -- they are forcing local repair shops to buy counterfeit / stolen parts...There's obviously a high demand for iDevice repairing from consumers who either can't afford to buy a new one or who don't even want to -- so of course people will be there to fill that demand however possible, and when the only option for guys like you is buying stolen / counterfeit parts, thats what you have to do in order to be able to stay in business.Can you also confirm that it's easier to get authentic parts from Samsung or HTC?

Posted by xrzx on 2016-10-29 22:54:23

Why are you selling yourself short like that?...Look on YouTube -- it's very easy to fix iPhones -- especially when it comes to screen replacements.The hard part is actually finding an authentic part -- Apple doesn't allow their suppliers to sell parts to anyone but them -- so all the parts you see online (replacement screens, home button, 3.5mm jacks, etc.) are ALL counterfeit, or stolen. In some countries, what people do is they have "smurfs" that go out, buy new iDevices, take them home, take out all the parts, replace them with counterfeit / stolen parts, put it back together, and then take it back to the store for a refund. All the authentic parts get top dollar on the market since this is really the _ONLY_ way to get 100% real verified parts...Don't you see how Apple is essentially enabling this type of thing to happen?

Posted by xrzx on 2016-10-29 22:50:32

That's not exactly true...It's a LOT easier to get authentic parts for a Samsung or HTC phone than it is for an Apple phone. I just got screwed over today too -- I have a broken home button on my iPhone -- I went to Apple, they want to charge me over 130 bucks to fix a single button...They can't just replace the button you see, they have to replace the entire screen! Why? Because that's their policy. Of course, there's absolutely nothing wrong with my existing screen, and the button can be taken off easily with three Philips head screws...Imagine if I had a guitar, and I broke a string, and I took it to a shop asking for a new string, and the guy said "Oh sorry we don't replace strings, we will have to order a whole new neck!" -- this is obvious gouging of people who probably are hit the hardest anyway -- if someone had the money they wouldn't care about getting a device repaired, they would just buy a new one anyway. I could order a new home button myself, the part costs about FIVE DOLLARS on ebay, but then the fingerprint sensor won't ever work again -- Apple are the only ones able to program the security tag on the TouchID home buttons to allow them to work again. So they have basically designed the phone with the idea that even a single button can't be repaired or replaced by anyone but them...This is downright sinister.

Posted by xrzx on 2016-10-29 22:45:30

The Iphone 6 and 6s are also the slickest, as in slippery, iphones ever made. I own a business that repairs them, and their, "miracle" glass is anything but. It breaks more often than any samsung I have seen.

Posted by Thatguythatknowsstuff on 2016-08-08 15:31:39

We are a recycling company based out of Hawthorne, California. We provide a sustainable solution for cellphone repair shops to recycle their cracked-screens always ensuring the best prices and the highest yields. We served over 3500 repair shops in 2015 and aim to reach over 8000 shops in 2016 . We are growing incredibly fast and hope to eventually serve EVERY repair shop in North America (and the rest of the world). If you are happy with our services, please recommend us to your friends and other repair stores as well. If you are not already a customer, please go ahead and request a shipping label and we will give you every reason to recycle with us every time.

Posted by cell phone screen recycling on 2016-06-24 06:45:23

If, despite your best efforts, the LCD screen cracks anyway, you may want to replace it instead of buying a new phone altogether. Check online to find a company that can sell you a less expensive replacement LCD for that iPhone of yours.

Posted by sell cracked lcd on 2016-04-20 23:51:35

In addition to the S8 portable ultrasound, a quick review of the Sonocape A6 and the first popular competitor of this portable ultrasound would be the Mindray DP6600 or DP6900. If you are searching for a Mindray DP-6600/DP-6900 (not too much difference), you may want to stop and look more clearly at the A6 Human or A6Vet equipment. The differences - many and vast but I will note what I witnessed while this demonstration took place.

Posted by lcd refurbishing equipment on 2016-04-04 00:45:59

Another incredible feature of iPhone's latest model is its screen. The company claims that it is the toughest and most scratch resistant screen to date. According to the specifications given it is the same glass which is used in helicopter windshields and in high-speed trains as well. It is supposedly 20 times harder and 30 times more stiff than plastic. If you are an environmentally friendly being then you would take pleasure in knowing that this glass is also recyclable.

Posted by lcd recycling machine on 2016-02-06 23:10:36

Juvenile garbage who is on the wrong thread!

Posted by Jon Mac on 2015-09-02 16:34:04

That guy prolly never read your reply, but that's how mindless morons work.

Posted by Jon Mac on 2015-09-02 16:29:08

Wonderful illustrated information. I thank you about that. No doubt it will be very useful for my future projects. Would like to see some other posts on the same subject!

Actually, if you read the article, you'd see that the author notes several instances where the fixes are, in fact, proprietary.

As for your iPhone - I'm glad you have such a high opinion of it, but just because you aren't competent to "tear it down" doesn't mean nobody else is (again, if you check the article, you'd find that there is a whole network of people who are competent, or who would be if not for the proprietary roadblocks.)

Technology does not "evolve." It's made by people, and it changes according to human decisions. You might not care about pollution and human rights, but plenty of other people do, and those people are attempting to shape an economy that is both sustainable and just.

The rapid pace of innovation, and the enormous waste, harm, and inefficiency that comes with it, has everything to do with profits and nothing to do with fairy tales about evolving machines. It's within our power to build tools to last, and made them capable of repair, if we want to. Or, we can continue to kill people and degrade the environment.

Posted by HeinzTheBaron on 2015-08-04 14:35:17

See what SLAVES we are to corporations? The wage system is slavery but USA can't believe that. They say it's not because we get paid, but by that "logic" if we got paid ONE CENT for our lifetime we are not slaves! Of course we're slaves, forced to sell ourselves to a master, or starve, & THAT'S ILLEGAL!!

Posted by Starsky on 2015-08-03 22:44:30

A "normal person" being one who, evidently, owns a ( cell and/or "smart" ) phone in the first place, who further rushes lemminglike to the newest shiny object when the old one inevitably proves unfulfilling, and who, moreover, is wasteful and heedless of alternatives to the "normal" way.

Posted by Cagey-B on 2015-08-02 01:47:12

I'm 75, and I had a bicycle repair business at 8, as an alternative to having a miserable morning newspaper route. I've repaired electronics, my father's occupation, for more than fifty years, including TVs and color radars.

The article presumes that the design is biased to proprietary fixes, but it isn't. My iPhone is a miracle of reliability and compressed engineering, and I'm just not competent to tear it down.

Technically, modern flatscreens are built by high-speed robots. Repair is rarely possible, or financially feasible.

Evolution depends on death and invention. Repair gets in the way.

Posted by Ormond Otvos on 2015-08-01 15:44:31

Or, you could just buy a new phone like a normal person

Posted by gregoryabutler on 2015-08-01 09:29:04

A more accurate headline would be "No phone manufacturer wants you to be able to fix your phone"

Posted by Zlatylev on 2015-07-31 13:26:53

A useful article. I'd like to encourage everyone to consider that the Free Software Foundation (free as in freedom) has been working hard for 30 years now to protect our rights and ability to modify and repair our software, not to mention the own the data we manipulate with that software. The harmful practices discussed in the article were pioneered in the software industry, and what we see now is a generalization of the same techniques to hardware. The FSF did something mind-blowing, which was to create a free (as in freedom) operating system and free software, all of which can be modified and repaired by anyone with the skill to do so. Work is underway to create certifications for hardware freedom, but it's a difficult problem and the FSF could use more support. Sadly they get very little media attention -- while Linux is well known, the political and ethical work they do, especially the GPL (Gnu Public License) are little known outside the programming community.

Posted by glen stark on 2015-07-30 23:36:58

Corporations have gone from "planned-obselence" to an actual expiration of a product. They don't make anything that can be fixed, and they do it to make the people buy again and again.

Posted by PJparker on 2015-07-30 23:05:31

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